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She wouldn't be FRANCINE BORDEAUX, would she? Sepiatone

I guess we'd all agree that SETH McFARLANE would say, "She does look good WET!" Sepiatone

As long as the picture resolution is good, I wouldn't really sweat it too much. If TCM can't give you a satisfactory answer, try the tech support of your cable provider. Not having the HD feature put onto my set, I wouldn't know. But if letterboxing never bothered you before, why should it now? On the other hand, I'm reminded of what my nephew pulled on my brother-in-law. Whenever he'd (the b-i-l) watch a DVD, the picture looked "compressed", like what we all used to see at the end of a "cinemascope" movie on conventional TV that was panned and scanned until the closing credits, and then everything in the picture would be taller and thinner. Well, all his DVDs had that look, and he couldn't figure it out. I had a hunch, and told him to check the settings on his DVD player. Sure enough, someone( turned out to be my nephew) put the settings on "compress". The nephew owned up to it and said he did so because he "didn't like" those black bars( letterboxing) at the top and bottom of the screen. All I could say was, "Well, little minds DO get distracted by the most insignificant things, don't they?" Sepiatone

In the "I liked the Oscars" thread, Fred C. Dobbs vented his dislike with the term "sicko" several times, warning us to take notice and put in check the direction our culture seems to be headed. To hell in a handbasket, his opinion seems to be. And I, an old middle-to-left traveling "hippie" can't really argue with it. While I always eschewed the notion of "sacred cows" and felt the need to do away with many of them, I never promoted the BARBEQUEING of them! My own daughter reminded me of this, unwittingly, by recently( and facetiously) chastising me on her upbringing. "You ruined my LIFE", she began, "You and your insisting me and my sister have MANNERS, and always to act like CIVILIZED human beings in public! And all that crap about talking as if we had BRAINS in our heads! If you hadn't have done THAT, WE might be on TV now, like those JERSEY SHORE morons, or HONEY BOO-BOO and the GYPSIES. We might even have moved to Myrtle Beach and lived in a trailer park and would have been STARS! But, NO! YOU had to push us into being RESPECTABLE. To be the kind of person the public laughs WITH and not AT! THANKS!" So it seems even a generation younger than mine recognizes the fact that our "culture" is quickly becoming one that is usually seen growing in a petri dish. It behooves me to think of an intelligent sounding reason why anyone would be entertained by the uncouth behavior of undereducated sleezeballs living in trailer parks( Author's note: It is NOT my belief that all people living in trailer parks are "sleezeballs". Over the years, several good friends and relatives have lived in trailer parks), or South Boston. Or WHY anyone would CARE about them in the first place. But them that produce the programming feel there's gold in them thar empty shells. What's troubling is, they're RIGHT! It's hard for parents to raise their children to have any level of self respect when those who can't even spell "CAT", even if you spot them the "C" and "T", become millionaires. Just by acting like idiots. It's even MORE dismaying when you realize it isn't an ACT. Fred, my hat's off to you. You saw it true and called it. I propose no answer here, for I wouldn't know where to begin. Sepiatone

Clark Gable? Well.... I kinda always likened him to Robert Preston. Anyway... He WAS a well known and liked name from my childhood. Always a likeable character. And even though most of us "boomers" know him primarily from television( I too, like IRON HORSE), he did make some pretty good movies. Let's make bets NOW if he'll be mentioned in next year's Oscar "Memoriam". Sepiatone

I must have been watching the "Boobs" number while in a parralel universe. I actually thought it a clever jab at the purile sexism in the motion picture industry. For whatever "artistic" excuse a director chooses to push at us in giving reasons for gratuitous nudity, at least half of the movie going public( read: MEN) only notices the boobs. Any "artistic" statement the film maker THINKS he's making gets lost in the bounces. Don't hate Seth for saying what others are probably thinking. Sepiatone

My wife and I frequent a family restraunt that offers a "senior discount". The age requirement is 60. I've started asking for it when I was 55. And I'd GET it! I didn't know if I should have been happy with getting the discount, or dismayed that I was NEVER asked if I QUALIFIED! Sigh... Sepiatone

As I've said somewhere earlier, they could shorten this show by relegating certain awards to those earlier ceremonies. Like "Sound Editing". If the idea is to up the ratings and entertain the television audience, most of who might not have as yet seen any of the movies in contention, then shoving some categories to another ceremony makes sense. Name me ONE "Oscar pool" that has the nominees for sound editing on it. Yeah, I know it's a vital part of the completion of a motion picture, but WHO really goes to SEE a movie because "so-and-so" did the SOUND? DROP some of the "nobody knows WHO the F*** they are" tech categories, and stick to the actors, actresses, and film score wins. STOP obsessing on the needless "red carpet" crap. Let performances of the nominees for "Best Song" be the ONLY musical numbers on the show. Just let the FAMILY of some dead film critic do the mourning. Whoever in this forum that asked "WHY do the Oscars need a THEME?" is absolutely correct! Insist that those who win needn't thank everybody down to their elementary school CROSSING guard in their acceptance speech. These ideas MIGHT make the whole evening move along at an acceptable pace. Sepiatone

I just read an online article about the memorial "omissions", and discovered that family members of the departed, as do the award nominees, have to campaign to get some of the departed mentioned. THAT'S just wrong! Sepiatone

The "Special Edition" of CE has the footage where Dreyfus enters the mothership and we see the interior. But the scene where Dreyfus is in discussion with other workers at the power plant before he goes off into the back roads is cut. Have no idea why, since it was already longer than the average movie, leaving it in wouldn't have made much of a difference. I always thought this was a cleverly concieved and executed sci-fi movie, in spite of a few, very minor effects issues. The discovery of the WWII airplanes in the Mexican desert, the ship in the Asian desert, all the people in India singing that same tune, the psycological affect the sightings had on those who witnessed them, and last, but not least, the scene in the airport control tower. Masterful build up to what the audience already knows must be coming. There are countless little things that most directors would have not bothered with that makes this an exceptional movie in this genre. Sepiatone

Y'know, I DON'T CARE! I mean no disrespect to Mr. Hamlish, but his was NOT the most tragic passing last year. And he was NOT the most iconic film composer. Sure, he was very talented. Of COURSE, we all know he and Streisand collaborated on many well recieved songs and recordings. But it looked to me they tried to make it seem HOLLYWOOD has died along WITH him! And having Babs at the ceremony was treated as if it were the SECOND COMING! And all it wound up being was a nose-thumbing of disrespect to those NOT mentioned or given tribute. What an embarassment! Sepiatone

I also noticed there was no "sweep" this year. And it seems to me they could have squeezed the "Lifetime Achievement" in the spot instead of having Streisand warbling. And I STILL don't get the adoration people have for Adele! I actually DOZED OFF during her "Oscar winning" song! And I laughed at Queen Latifah jumping in announcing the winner while Zellweger kept squinting at the card! Sepiatone

The MOVIE, hands down! The TV show, while OK, still is no comparison. Sepiatone

McFarland has a base and straightforward sense of humor. Not to everyone's taste for sure, but in MY humble opinion, he was not the worst host ever. Nor the best. THAT'S a matter of opinon. No celebrity can have a thin skin when HE'S involved, that's certain. But I think Affleck was upset at the TRUTH of McFarland's joke ( "The mission was SO top secret that the DIRECTOR of the film is STILL unknown to the Academy!") than the joke itself. I'm STILL chuckling at the line, "The only actor to get inside Lincoln's head was JOHN WILKES BOOTH". My favorite gag was the last song he and Chenowith sang, dedicated to the "losers". Surprisingly good singing voice that boy has! Somewhere in the late '80's, I think, someone decided it was better to say "The Oscar goes to..." instead of "The winner is...". Likely some PC horseship about NOT offending anyone. But face it, if you DIDN'T get the statuette, you LOST! So get OVER it, LOSER! Maybe it was Seth's HONEST humor some didn't care for. I already gave my opinion of that God-awful "in Memoriam" segment in another thread. Words cannot express how abysmally terrible it was. By the way...I must have been in the bathroom or something...WHO got the "Lifetime Achievement" award? Sepiatone

Diller was also in *Eight On The Lam* and *The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell* with BOB HOPE. I sat up in my chair when they ended the "In Memoriam" segment with Babs singing Marvin's "The Way We Were". I knew instantly there was a whole host of people they left out! Yeah, Griffith was one. Among others. The most shameful memorial ever presented by the academy. Sepiatone

My wife was surfing and stopped for a minute when TCM was showing this. It was during a close-up of Kim Novak when my wife said, "Look at her eyebrows." "What ABOUT them?" I asked. She THEN asked, "I wonder what kind of BUTTERFLIES they turned into?" *!?!?!* Sepiatone

Thanks Fred, I'll try that. Dabb, I knew you probably reposted who that was, but by the time I returned to the thread, it went two extra pages, so getting back to THAT was the difficulty! All settled now, thanks for all your patience. Sepiatone

Thanks for the link, Addy. Just read it. hilarious! Sepiatone

More power to 'em! Thanks heaps for the links! Sepiatone

Back in the early '90's, I reworked the lyrics to Bob Dylan's old song "IT'S ALL OVER NOW(BABY BLUE)" into a "reality check" ballad called, "IT'S ALL OVER NOW( BABY BOOM)". One of the lines went; "The music that the elevator plays; are all the songs from your old rebel days!" The comic strip "Doonesbury" did a similar thing in which Mike Donnesbury visits his kid brother, who runs a "soft rock" radio station which featured music by Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and the like! Sepiatone

Used to be my favorite show, Hibi. Couldn't WAIT to see who was going to be among the list of celebrity suspects! Curse my cable provider for dropping MeTV last year! Sepiatone

Thanks, lavender. Now, if only someone can tell me WHY this is happening... Sepiatone PS: I've never HEARD of Camilla Sparv!

I think what hurts it is we KNOW what Andrews looked like BEFORE her "female impersonator" phase, or that the audience is IN on the ruse. I don't know. My only other issue with V/V besides the music(more on that in a bit) is the idea that PRESTON'S character infers that he CHOSE to be gay, when in fact, too many are STILL arguing the notion of the "Chosen/hard-wired" lifestyle debate. My only issue with the music is this: While many of the tunes in V/V are wonderfully done, they STILL don't bring to mind the music one might have heard in ANY Paris nightclub in the late 1930's. That's all. Sepiatone

My wife is older than me, and often she'll try to wrest the remote from me when I put on some "****" old movie on TCM. But every once in a while, she'll just let it ride and take an interest. I'm still not sure what makes the difference. It's not easy to tell which "****" old movie she'll sit still and watch or not. But she's good at identifying old time actors and acresses that I can't think the name of. I only know for sure that she won't tolerate most "silents" with the exception of Buster Keaton. Sepiatone

I always saw *Alfie* as a morality play. It WAS updated with JUDE LAW in the title part. While Law is a fine actor himself, he is NO Michael Caine. But the point of my mentioning it at all is to point out the timelessness of the original. At this stage of my life, I've seen and personally known a few "Alfies" in that time. When we're younger, Alfie always looked like that "greener grass" we all wished to graze on, but they actually all wind up the same all alone wasted lives with too many bridges burned behind them. Now, when they NEED someone to see them through, we're all too busy with our own problems and situations to give them the help they once thought they'd never need. ALFIE was NOT the first movie to deal with "backroom abortions" however. There WERE others, but just not as stark. You're right to insist that this movie is an "essential". Sepiatone